TornadoQSim: An Open-source High-Performance and Modular Quantum Circuit Simulation Framework

Abstract

In this article, we present TornadoQSim, an open-source quantum circuit simulation framework implemented in Java. The proposed framework has been designed to be modular and easily expandable for accommodating different user-defined simulation backends, such as the unitary matrix simulation technique. Furthermore, TornadoQSim features the ability to interchange simulation backends that can simulate arbitrary quantum circuits. Another novel aspect of TornadoQSim over other quantum simulators is the transparent hardware acceleration of the simulation backends on heterogeneous devices. TornadoQSim employs TornadoVM to automatically compile parts of the simulation backends onto heterogeneous hardware, thereby addressing the fragmentation in development due to the low-level heterogeneous programming models. The evaluation of TornadoQSim has shown that the transparent utilization of GPU hardware can result in up to 506.5$x$ performance speedup when compared to the vanilla Java code for a fully entangled quantum circuit of 11 qubits. Other evaluated quantum algorithms have been the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm (493.10$x$ speedup for a 11-qubit circuit) and the quantum Fourier transform algorithm (518.12$x$ speedup for a 11-qubit circuit). Finally, the best TornadoQSim implementation of unitary matrix has been evaluated against a semantically equivalent simulation via Qiskit. The comparative evaluation has shown that the simulation with TornadoQSim is faster for small circuits, while for large circuits Qiskit outperforms TornadoQSim by an order of magnitude.